


Lillith

by GoodFae



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:02:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5441048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodFae/pseuds/GoodFae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marianne answers an add in the paper seeking a model for Satan after the fall...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lillith

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on tumblr, but an increase in my fanfiction-ing resulted in creating an account here. There will be a follow up on this, at least 2 more chapters mostly written at this point, but as it stands alone, I'm putting it as complete for now.

Marianne glanced down at the torn paper in her hand then back up at the ludicrously purple Victorian stuck on a sloping hill of one of San Francisco’s prettier neighbor hoods and rethought her earlier worries that she was walking into a meeting with a starving artist who wouldn’t be able to pay squat for this. Judging by the neighborhood, money wasn’t going to be a problem.  And thank God, cause she needed a windfall.   Unlike whoever lived here, she was a starving artist.  

And she was learning that San Francisco was not cheap.  

She had to all but climb over the mismatched pots of plants stuffed tightly together on the stairs and then paused on the doorstep because there wasn’t a doorbell.  She looked high and low around the door but the only thing she found was huge tassle dangling from an ornate hole near a gaudy porch light.  On a whim, she gave it a yank and inside the house came the deep ring of a gong.  

               Quirky. But then again, this was San Francisco.

               The door opened and Marianne swore she drowned in an invisible sea of flowers, the smell so strong her lungs nearly seized.

               “Well, you’re too old to be selling Girl Scout cookies.  Too pretty to be here for my nephew.” The silver haired woman leaned forward, pushing her perfume further up Marianne’s nostrils.  “Pretty girls terrify him. Turns him into an angry, snarling beast of a man.”

               Eyes watering with the effort not to breakdown into a fit of coughing, she waved the paper in her hand. “Here for…artist. Fallen Satan.”

               “What? You?”

               Marianne nodded briskly and before she could give the speech she’d made on why she’d make the perfect choice for Satan after the fall, the woman had stepped back, gesturing her in.

               “Griselda!  Griselda, come look at what I have here.”  

               A much shorter woman, with wild hair and a simple tunic dress on appeared from down the long, unapologetically green hallway. Her voice was every bit as big as she was short. “You’ve got a girl. Oh, a pretty girl. Well, the hair could use some help, but look at her!”

               “She’s here for the modeling position.”

               The shorter woman, Griselda’s face puckered. “Modeling position?”

               “Fallen Satan.”

The puckering became a glowing joy and she rubbed her hands together.  “Oh yes. Yes.  Yes, yes yes. Oh, Plum, I think we got the perfect one!”

“So do I!”

The tall one spun her to face her, her eyes going over her face then downward. “Well, I’m Plumeria, but you can call me Plum. This is my sister in law, Griselda.  Why don’t you come in here and we’ll have a better look at you.”

They led her into a cavern of pink.  The walls of the living area were carnation colored, and decorated with what Marianne recognized as genuinely good art.  Pieces that were probably worth thousands gloated over littered books and blanket strewn couches, and various random musical instruments.  And all of it was tucked into a room so abysmally feminine that her skin crawled.

Plum knocked on another door briefly before opening it. “Here we are.”

Random sketches were tacked up to a board in a corner, pencils and paint brushes littered every horizontal surface, more books, anatomical references, museum dossiers, and a mad litter of photographs took up the vertical spaces. The space made her instantly more comfortable as she recognized it for what it was, an artist’s studio.  Chaotic and creative, it spoke to her.

“Right then.  I suppose you’d be modeling nude.”

“Plum!” Griselda giggled, batting at the other woman’s arm.

“It’s art, dear sister.  Nude is art. Are you embarrassed by being naked?”

“Not in the name of art,” Marianne said.  Besides, both of them were women, it wasn’t like she had anything they’d never seen before.  “Are you sure you want me for this? I figured with me being a woman…well, I guess I thought you were looking for a male to model it.  You know, in sticking with tradition. I wore something I thought might sort of help you envision Lucifer as Lucifette.”

Plum laughed and Griselda waved her hand. “You wore jeans and a teeshirt?”

Marianne quickly undressed, revealing the complex body jewelry she’d made and worn.  The top piece wrapped around her throat in an evocative hold, then a thin chain coasted over the slope of each shoulder and from that, loops and loops of chains hung down. They skimmed over her skin, covering each breast entirely, but outlined the shape, the sway of them as she moved. She’d designed it so that her nipples would play peek a boo in the silky glide of metal over her breasts and she didn’t try to hide that as the women stared at her.

The bottom piece was engineered to look as if it hung from her belly button ring, and it repeated the sensual loops of chain that covered her privates, just barely and then kissed down the edge of her thighs towards her knees. Both armor and seduction, it was what Marianne considered a masterpiece of her own design.  

The awe on their faces bolstered her and she stood proudly, her faint embarrassment fading quickly.

Plum’s eyes narrowed, the laughter gone from her face. Suddenly all business, she peered closer at Marianne’s body chains.  “Where did you get this?”

“I made it.”

“You?” Plucking a pair of glasses from the neck of her dress, she sat them on her nose and walked around her, eyeing the piece from every angle.

“I’m a jewelry designer.”

“What’s your name?”

“Marianne Bijou.”

“I haven’t heard of you. Why haven’t I heard of you?”

“Oh, I’m new. I’ve sold two pieces and both were to my sister.”

“But you have more?”

“Yes, I’m putting together a collection.”

“I want to see it.”

“Now?”

“No, Monday. Bring it to my gallery.  Plumeria.”

A skitter of recognition lifted the hair on the back of Marianne’s neck. “You’re…Plumeria.  Of the Plumeria Gallery?”

“The one and only.”

“And you’re going to paint me?”

“Oh, heavens no. I’m an art lover, that’s all.”

Marianne glanced at Griselda, and she lifted her hands. “I’m just a mother.”

“Then who?”

“My son.” Griselda said with a smile.  “We’ll just go wake him up now.”

“Oh.” Marianne reached for her discarded clothes, embarrassed she’d stripped down in front of these poor women.  “I’m so sorry, I assumed one of you would be doing the painting?”

Griselda pried the clothes from her hands, tucking them under her arm. “No, no. Just like this. You’re perfect.”

“You don’t think he ought to be making that decision?”

“Yes, you’re right.  We’ll go get him.” Plum shooed the other woman out, leaving her without her clothes.  

She stood rooted in spot the first five minutes.  And when no one came, she wandered the room a little, studying the sketches and bits and pieces of art she found tucked here and there.  He, whoever he was, had talent. Real talent. He took the dark and the horrid and made it beautiful.  He took the beautiful and made it dark and horrid.  

A deep male baritone, echoed by shrill female voices became louder.  He, whoever he was, was not happy he’d been woken up.  

The door slapped open against the wall.  “The bloody fuck is so important you two had to drag me out of bed at this hour of the day?”  
               “It’s nearly eleven.” Plum said. “And we want you to meet Marianne. She’s here to model for you.”

               He was all chest and shoulders and scowling face, looking as if he wanted to murder someone. But it was the shock of his blue eyes made her pulse kick up, her heart knocking hard enough against her chest that she could feel the chain’s moving with every frantic beat.  His narrow waist dissolved into incredibly long legs.   Long legs that buckled under him as he sprawled into a chair by the doorway.  

                “When I said I wanted to paint a fallen angel, I didn’t mean for you to actually buy me a whore.”

               Silence filled the room for the half second it took Marianne to comprehend what he said.  Before Griselda or Plum could get out whatever sentiments they were sputtering over in shock, Marianne crossed towards the man, closing her hand over the back of his chair, leaning down into his face.  

               Bitter blue burned back into her face, the angles of his cheekbones hard and unyielding.  

               “Call me a whore again and I’ll personally put each one of these chains through your scrotum.”  

               “What am I supposed ta think? I asked for Satan after the fall and I got Eve after the apple.”

               He spoke with an accent, something so unabashedly beautiful in light of his disgusting manner that Marianne had to steel herself against it. She sneered, her lip curling up in a slow motion that he followed with his eyes.  

               “I’m always Lillith, never Eve.”  

At the mention of Adam’s first wife, the one who obeyed no one and saw herself as Adam’s equal, the man’s eye brow quirked and his expression softened ever so slightly, drawing her attention down to the shape of his mouth. Did he always look so sad, she wondered?  
               Aware she’d been silently staring at his mouth, she shoved off the chair, backing out from between his legs.  

Griselda pinched the bridge of her nose.  “Marianne Bijou, my son Bog. Son,” she patted his shoulder as she turned towards the door. “Open your bloody eyes.”

“He’s never going to get laid with that attitude,” Plum mumbled under her breath as she shut the door behind them.

Marianne realized too late they’d left her without clothes. Again. She stood there in her seductive armor, alone with a man who looked as if he’d rather being eating from the sour end of a bucket of nails. Her fingers smoothed over the chain on her thigh in an attempt to sooth herself.  This was not what she’d envisioned when she first created this piece.  Its purpose had been as thoroughly destroyed as she had been a few months ago.  But unlike the chains, she’d found herself a new purpose. And was thriving emotionally…financially was another story. She remembered Plumeria’s request to see her collection and held her head a little higher.  So she’d get her chance at happiness, it was just a damn fucking shame this piece was never going to get what she’d designed it for.  Perhaps she’d been silly in thinking that having it immortalized in a painting would fulfill all the hopes and dreams she’d had for it.

 

               Bog didn’t know where to look. He kept looking at her hips, the fuckable flare of them before they disappeared under chain made it impossible to think. But her face, those eyes.  Christ, he felt heartsick just looking at this angry fairy-like creature. She hid a lot of pain in those golden eyes even as she stood like a warrior in his studio.  It made him what to do two things.  Kiss it better and fuck her senseless.  And then his eyes fell back to the curve of her hips and he went braindead again.  

               “They took my clothes,” she muttered. “I can leave just as soon as I get them back.”

               He cleared his throat, reaching for a sketchpad and pencil, hoping the tools would make him feel a little more artist and a little less like tipping down to taste the little pink nipples being courted by the finest sort of gold chain.  He’d seen nude women before. All of them in this exact setting– artist and muse, and he’d never once been seconds away from slipping his hand over her side just to see if it was as soft as it looked.  

“You’re not the first woman I’ve seen nude.” Too late he realized he’d said that out loud.

“Yeah, and you’re not first guy to see me naked. Well. You are the first to see this…” her voice trailed off and she pushed a bit of chestnut hair out of her face.  “About my clothes.”

“Ye here for the modeling position or not?”

Indecision crossed her face as she openly studied him.  He bore her gaze as best he could, well aware that he was a bristled stick of a man. By now he was all but used to the quick repulsed dismissal from women.  

But she just looked at him and nothing in her expression changed until her eyes fell on his half-buttoned shirt.  Pink crept up from underneath the angry fairy’s jewelry, taking her throat in a deep flush. And he didn’t quite know what to make of that.  

               “Will I work? For Lucifer?”

               “No.”

               “Oh.” Her mouth fell into a disappointed moue.

               “But, ye’ll make one hell of a Lillith.  The fallen angel will wait.”

               She seemed to like that, her face brightening. “Lillith.  Yes. What do I do?” She asked, turning around in the room.  

               “Ah’ll just do a few sketches today.  Get to know the shape of yer body.” His voice cracked but he forged on hoarsely.  “Have a seat up there.”

               He gestured to a big wide window seat, more day bed than not currently collecting a bit of warm sunshine.  She walked towards it and Bog was relieved he was already sitting.  But damn, that jewelry was fucking built to torture a man.  He held the pad over his lap, hiding the hard shape his pants were taking. 

She perched on the seat, legs crossed, hands folded in her lap.  Not quite the position Lillith would take, but Bog appreciated it all the same.  “Roll over, onto yer belly.” His voice was still strained, and he fought it. Looking at the human body objectively was his job, but looking at her was like staring into the sun.              

She repositioned herself and he forced his eyes onto his jar of random pencils. He plucked a few out, keeping them within easy reach.  “I’m sorry I thought ye were a whore.  My mother’s getting a bit desperate about finding me a…” He stopped and cleared his throat.  “Well, some female company.”

“Oh,” was her only response.  She was on her stomach as he’d asked, propped up on her elbows, clearly more nervous now than she’d been before.  He awkwardly scratched behind his neck, the artist in him wanting her relaxed. Natural.  Owning what that jewelry did to her body.  He wanted to reposition her himself, until he’d guided her to just the right arch in her neck and bend in her knee.  But to do that, he had to touch her.  

And Bog was many things.  But he wasn’t an idiot.  He slowly rose and moved towards her, his hands tingling in anticipation of touching something so beautiful.  He kept it very professional, just like he would any other model, but inside, his gut tightened like a spring the moment his fingers brushed against her arm, urging her to stretch out amongst the pillows and her body responded willingly. The line of her back lengthening like a stretching cat, so gorgeously lithe and limber.

“I forgot to ask.  Does this pay?”

“Yes,” he replied absently.

Her sigh of relief caught his attention.  “Ye need the money then?”

“Struggling artist.”

“Yer an artist?” He withdrew his hands.  

“Jewelry designer.”

He looked at the chains on her body.  “These?”

“My design.  I…um…designed them for my honeymoon, to surprise him.”

The air left Bog’s body, a painful black spot twisted in his chest.  “Yer married.”

“No. He cheated on me, there was no wedding. I never got to wear this.” The vulnerability in her voice didn’t escape him as she darted a glance over her shoulder at him.  “I didn’t want it languishing in a box under my bed. It deserves better. That’s why I wore it today.”

“Let me paint ye, and when he sees this picture, ye’ll have the comfort of knowing he’ll weep himself to sleep the next sixty years.”

She laughed breathlessly, amusement sparkling through her amber eyes.  

Bog would paint her, and for the next sixty years, he’d have the delight of remembering how a fairy had once stolen into his studio and allowed him the honor of immortalizing her nude body.  

Pulling his chair closer to the where she lay, he settled back down and flipped open his sketch book.  

Bit by bit, Marianne’s body warmed to the heat of the sun pouring over her body. She regarded him as he worked, marveling at how his face changed with every stroke of his pencil, the stern cut of his cheek bones softening and gentling, the blue of his eyes blazing brighter with every sweep over her body.  She knew art, she knew when someone was madly inspired. When the art they were creating moved them to a passion so sweet, nothing could penetrate it.  That was how he looked at her.  And it sent a surge of heat through her limbs.  Her body became more fluid like as time wore on, her skin sensitive to every little sensation.  She felt beautiful.  He wasn’t even touching her and she was burning.  

“Roll over.” He commanded in that deep brogue.

She did so slowly, the chains sliding over her skin, petting her as he watched.  He lifted his eyes to her and a sharp sting of pleasure swept across her chest and peaked between her thighs.  She could almost pretend the slide of the chains was his fingers on her, his nails slowly scraping over her thighs up between her breasts.    

He stared, drinking her in. The pencil twitched in his hand, then he bent towards his pad, sketching.  Paper after paper, like he couldn’t get enough of her.  Of drawing the lines of her body.  Of letting his pencil worship what she wanted him touch.  

And then he stopped, panting, staring with a stunned frown at the paper in his lap.  “Ah’ve run out.”

She slipped off the cushions and stood.  He looked at her briefly then blushed and glanced away, his fingers nervously twisting the pencil in his hands.  

“Look at me.”

He shook his head no, but slowly his eyes slid back to her. The chains moved with her body as she crossed to him, giving him peeks of the parts of her she wants worshipped.  His face tensed, the angles the sharpening there until she wasn’t sure if he was going to growl or purr, but the thought of either made her body clench tight.  She felt dangerous.  She felt as wicked as Satan after the fall.  

He swallowed, his adam’s apple moving down the line of his throat, his eyes narrowing over that sharp nose as she drew closer.  

“Are we done for today?” She asked.

“Aye.”

She moved between his legs and he clutched the arms of the chair.  A mixture of nervous apprehension and aching desire warred in his eyes.  He kept them mostly averted, only stealing short fascinated glances at her.  

“Will your mother or aunt interrupt us?”

“No,” came his whispered reply.  His long fingers lifted from the chair and hovered over her sides, not quite touching her.

She bent down and he leaned forward, their mouths catching each other’s in a breathless hold. Marianne’s hands settled on his shoulders and his long fingers grabbed at her waist. His kiss was polite, but the steady clench and kneading of his fingers at her hips reminded her of a race horse frantically pacing at the gate, waiting permission to take the track at a hundred miles per hour. She slipped her tongue against his mouth, blatantly asking for him to open, blatantly telling him she wanted him take the bit and put those hands wherever and however he wanted on her body.  

After a moment’s hesitation, his mouth opened. Pink scored the line of his cheekbones and she chased it with her fingertips and softly stroked into his mouth. He groaned, his hands jerkily moving, one sliding down over her hip, cupping her ass while the other slid up her back, tangling in the chains there.   His arms tightened, drawing her down into his lap while their tongues tasted each other.  The sexual thrust of his against hers was unpracticed but so very raw and needy. Marianne’s body begged her to give him anything he wanted, to answer that aching pluck of his mouth against hers with more and more until he was buried inside of her.  

A deep gong sounded in a far off part of the house, yanking Marianne back to herself. If she was right, that was the doorbell.  And it was probably Dawn whom she’d told to come collect her corpse if she didn’t return soon from the modeling interview.  Bog’s mouth still ate at hers, the whiskers on his cheeks rasping brilliant specks into her skin, nearly dragging her back under with him. But she forced herself to sit calmly, to gently lead him back out of the fog with soft kisses until he sat limply, his forehead pressed against hers, his chest rising and falling with every breath.

“I think my sister’s here to collect me.”  

He nodded.  

“We always get Chinese on Wednesdays. She and I and her boyfriend Sunny.”

He nodded again, peeling his hands off of her body.  “Ye’ll want yer clothes then.”

“You should join us for dinner.”

He shook his head, the hard edges closing in around his face again. “Ah’m not easy in the company of others.”  He gave a mirthless laugh.  “It’s been a year now since ah moved from Scotland, and I haven’t a friend to my name.”

“Please.” She insisted softly, not sure why she wanted this so badly.  But she didn’t want to leave his presence yet. And if they stayed here, she was going to pull him over to that bed of a window seat and have her way with him.  But a deepening sensation told her that this might be fairly new to him, if not altogether new.  It made her feel protective.  And humbled that she might be the first or very nearly the first to capture his attention. The first he trusted to let himself go with.  

He gently set her from his lap. “I’ll fetch yer things.”

Alone, she pondered the discarded sketch pad, turned face down.  And she thought about the sadness that lurked in his face.  

The door opened and he was back, thrusting the close at her. “Ye better hurry. There’s a blond Valkyrie out for my blood.  Fer God’s sake, get yer cloths on and show yerself to her so she knows yer safe.”  

She thrust her legs back into her jeans and pulled her shirt over her head just as Dawn lurched into the room.  

“Marianne! You’re not a corpse!”

“Not today, no.”

Her sister eyed Bog and squirmed around him to take Marianne’s arm. “I take it you’re Satan now.”

“Lillith,” she replied with a soft smile towards him.  His ears colored slightly, his eyes warming just a bit.

Dawn picked up the sketchpad, turning it over in her hands before Marianne or Bog could stop her.  He withdrew with a muttered curse, shoved his hands in his pocket, and turned to study one of the corkboards crammed with pictures.  “Ye can return tomorrow if ye want.  For another session.”

Marianne yanked the sketchpad from Dawn who was staring down at the pictures with a strange look.  

“You should come get dinner with us.” Dawn said.

“What?” Marianne and Bog both asked at the same time.

“You should come get dinner with us.  It’s Wednesday.  Chinese. Marianne’s horribly boring and eats the same thing every time and my boyfriend only likes it if its burn the house down spicy. So I need someone to share my dim sum with.” Dawn smiled at him, even though Bog was scowling at her now in a way far more terrifying than he had been when she’d first come into the room acting so intimidated by his presence. Now, despite his snarled irritation, she wrapped her arm around his.

“So Marianne showed you her piece entitled Seduction.  I’m wondering, as another artist, just what your thoughts on it were.”

Bog was apparently so thrown off that he didn’t have the wits to shake her loose. He just followed her out of the room, all the way out to the street where a very puzzled Sunny sat on one of the yard’s toadstool shaped flower pots.

“Sunny, this is…” Dawn glanced up at Bog.

He scratched a hand behind his neck.  “Bog,” he muttered.  

“Bug,” Dawn said with a smile.

“Bog.” He repeated, frowning at her, but she laughed and poked the end of his nose with a finger.

“Oh, silly. I’m so starving, I can’t even think straight.”

Bog made a noise in the back of his throat, and he glanced backwards at the house with some desperation.  Marianne stood on the porch, an apologetic smile on her face, even if she didn’t feel sorry at all.  He looked cute surrounded by Dawn and Sunny, both shorter than him by a lot.

“Well, I’ll be seeing you Monday for sure if not sooner.” Plumeria handed her a business card.  “I want to see everything, finished or not.  I’m intrigued by you…so lay it all in front of me and we’ll see about making your name known.”  She studied her nephew. “I take it everything worked out?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so pleased.”

“We’re taking him for Chinese,” Marianne said.  “My sister doesn’t take no for an answer.”

Plum gave a knowing smile.  “I suggest the place on Dark Forest Avenue, you can walk from here.  An absolute imp of a man runs the place. Tell him I sent you.”

Marianne nodded and started after the others.  The adrenaline of having Bog’s hands on her body hadn’t quite left her yet and it surged when she neared him and his blue eyes landed on hers.  

She smiled.  And he answered it with a soft, slight tilt of his head.  And when Dawn finally released him to catch a ride on Sunny’s back, Marianne walked next to his side quietly.

“Ye’ll wear the piece tomorrow?”  He asked, his hand fluttering near her side as if he wanted to take her hand, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

She tangled her fingers in his.  “For you, yes.”

 


End file.
